Concrete blocks have been a basic building material for many years. Concrete blocks have been designed for use in many applications, including concrete masonry blocks used in the construction of foundations of residential and commercial buildings, as well as in constructing the interior and exterior walls of such buildings, and concrete retaining wall blocks used to construct retaining walls. Concrete masonry blocks are typically laid up in courses with mortar being used to secure the blocks to one another, while concrete retaining wall blocks are typically dry stacked (i.e. no mortar is used) in ascending courses.
One example of a concrete masonry block is the well known gray building block. A common use for these blocks has been in the construction of residential basements, where the gray blocks are laid up with mortar between the blocks to form the walls of such basements. These gray blocks typically have one or more core openings extending vertically therethrough to reduce the amount of concrete used to form each block and to reduce the weight of the block. The core openings also enable the gray blocks to be anchored to an underlying foundation when such anchoring is desired. When the gray blocks are stacked on top of each other into courses to form a wall, the core openings line up with one another. The aligned core openings allow reinforcement, for example rebar, which extends from the foundation, to extend though the core openings and for a bodning material, for example grout, to be poured down into the aligned core openings, for anchoring the wall to the foundation. However, the outside exposed walls formed by such blocks are visually plain and unattractive.
Retaining wall blocks generally have a more attractive front face than gray blocks. One way in which the visual appearance of concrete retaining wall blocks is enhanced is to make the front face less uniform and more “natural” appearing. This can be done by using a splitting process to create an irregular front face, often referred to as a “rock-face”, on the block. In this process, as it is commonly practiced, a relatively large concrete workpiece which has been adequately cured is split to form two or more relatively smaller blocks. The resulting blocks have faces that are somewhat textured and irregular along the plane(s) of splitting. Retaining wall blocks are usually dry stacked to form a retaining wall. The blocks may be located with respect to blocks in adjacent courses and held in place by locator lips or protrusions, or by pins.
As with gray building blocks, it is sometimes desirable to anchor a wall that is constructed from retaining wall blocks to a foundation using reinforcement and a bonding material to provide additional stability to the wall. To do so, the retaining wall blocks must be constructed so as to function with the reinforcement and the bonding material.
Accordingly, there is a need for concrete retaining wall blocks that are configured to cooperate with reinforcement and bonding material for anchoring a retaining wall constructed from a plurality of the blocks to a foundation.